Gerald Massey

(Thomas) Gerald Massey was a man of varied talents. The son of a canal boatman, he was born into a life of poverty at Gamnel Wharf, Tring, in Hertfordshire. On reaching the age of eight Massey was put to work (12 hour days) in the town's Silk Mill. An outcome of these harsh beginnings was that he spent much of his early life fighting the cause of the working man as a political agitator (“Chartist”), radical journalist and poet, much of his earlier poetry being of particular interest to social historians. Self educated, he later became a well-known essayist, lecturer and literary critic, writing poetry reviews mainly for the literary journal, the 'Athenaeum'. He was also a noted Shakespearian researcher, as such he published well-argued theories on a subject of continuing controversy and lively debate, the circumstances surrounding Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Undoubtedly Massey’s enduring reputation will rest on his work as an evolutionist, research that he commenced in middle life and which absorbed his later years until his death in 1907. In his three great evolutionary works ('A Book of the Beginnings'; 'The Natural Genesis'; 'Ancient Egypt, Light of the World') - and braving much censure and ridicule - he advanced new theories on human and religious origins in which he identified Ancient Egypt as the origin of civilisation. Many of his theories have since been validated, in particular the now generally accepted ‘Out of Africa’ origins and early migration flows of humans, which geneticists are now establishing using DNA analysis and comparison techniques that Massey could never have imagined. - http://www.Gerald-Massey.org.uk - Ian Petticrew